Tai-Danae Bradley has a new free “booklet” on applied category theory. It was inspired by the workshop Applied Category Theory 2018, which she attended, and I think it makes a great com…
Category: Mathematics
👓 On the recently removed paper from the New York Journal of Mathematics | Terence Tao
In the last week or so there has been some discussion on the internet about a paper (initially authored by Hill and Tabachnikov) that was initially accepted for publication in the Mathematical Inte…
I wish there were more on the math here or at least some solid discussion of the actual science. The huge number of comments make me just think that this is gasoline, however well intentioned it may be.
👓 Riemann hypothesis, fine structure constant, Todd function | John D. Cook
This morning Sir Michael Atiyah gave a presentation at the Heidelberg Laureate Forum with a claimed proof of the Riemann hypothesis. The Riemann hypothesis (RH) is the most famous open problem in mathematics, and yet Atiyah claims to have a simple proof.
Based on the update that the whole thing may fall apart, but the fact that it’s based on the Todd function as it reaches a limit for the fine structure constant might provide an answer to Sean Carroll’s issues? We’ll see what comes of it.
As I get amped up for the start of Mike Miller’s Fall math class Gems and Astonishments of Mathematics, which is still open for registration, I’m even more excited that he’s emailed me to say that he’ll be teaching Category Theory for the Winter Quarter in 2019!!
👓 Riemann hypothesis likely remains unsolved despite claimed proof | New Scientist
Mathematician Michael Atiyah has presented his claimed proof of one of the most famous unsolved problems in maths, but others remain cautiously sceptical
👓 Atiyah and the Fine-Structure Constant | Sean Carroll
Sir Michael Atiyah, one of the world’s greatest living mathematicians, has proposed a derivation of α, the fine-structure constant of quantum electrodynamics. A preprint is here. The math her…
🔖 Claimed proof of The Riemann Hypothesis by Sir Michael Atiyah
🔖 Categorical informatics
"Category theory is a universal modeling language."
Background.
Success is founded on information. A tight connection between success (in anything) and information. It follows that we should (if we want to be more successful) study what information is.
Grant proposals. These are several grant proposals, some funded, some in the pipeline, others not funded, that explain various facets of my research project.
Introductory talk (video, slides).
Blog post, on John Baez's blog Azimuth, about my motivations for studying this subject. (Here's a .pdf version.)
👓 News re proofs of the ABC conjecture & Riemann Hypothesis | John D. Cook
There have been a couple news stories regarding proofs of major theorems. First, an update on Shinichi Mochizuki’s proof of the abc conjecture, then an announcement that Sir Michael Atiyah claims to have proven the Riemann hypothesis.
👓 Famed mathematician claims proof of 160-year-old Riemann hypothesis | New Scientist
Michael Atiyah, a famed UK mathematician, claims that he has a "simple proof" of the Riemann hypothesis, a key unsolved question about the nature of prime numbers
👓 Titans of Mathematics Clash Over Epic Proof of ABC Conjecture | Quanta Magazine
Erica Klarreich (Quanta Magazine)Two mathematicians have found what they say is a hole at the heart of a proof that has convulsed the mathematics community for nearly six years.
This break in the story of the ABC conjecture is sure to make that portion of Mike Miller’s upcoming math class on Gems And Astonishments of Mathematics: Past and Present at UCLA much more interesting.
👓 Curve-Fitting | xkcd
Cauchy-Lorentz: "Something alarmingly mathematical is happening, and you should probably pause to Google my name and check what field I originally worked in."
I love that it’s all the exact same data points…
👓 Additional thoughts on the Ted Hill paper | Timothy Gowers
First, I’d like to thank the large number of commenters on my previous post for keeping the discussion surprisingly calm and respectful given the topic discussed. In that spirit, and to try t…
The analysis here makes me think there might be some useful tidbits hiding in the 300+ comments of his prior article. I wish I had the time to dig back into it.
Highlights, Quotes, Annotations, & Marginalia
Our prehistoric ancestors were not doing higher mathematics, so we would need to think of some way that being on the spectrum could have caused a man at that time to become highly attractive to women. ❧
One needs to remember that it isn’t always the men that themselves need to propagate the genes directly (ie, they don’t mate with someone to hand their genes down to their progeny directly). Perhaps a man on the autism spectrum, while not necessarily attractive himself, has traits which improve the lives and fitness of the offspring of his sister’s children? Then it’s not his specific genes which are passed on as a result, but those of his sister’s which have a proportion of his genes since they both share their parent’s genes in common.
September 19, 2018 at 03:35PM
variability amongst males ❧
Does it need to be a mate-related thing? Why not an environmental one. I seem to recall that external temperature had a marked effect on the sexual selection within alligator populations such that a several degree change during gestation would swing the sex proportion one way or another. Could these effects of environment have caused a greater variability?
Further, what other factors may be at play? What about in sea horse populations where males carry the young? Does this make a difference?
September 19, 2018 at 03:41PM
👓 Has an uncomfortable truth been suppressed? | Timothy Gowers
Update to post, added 11th September. As expected, there is another side to the story discussed below. See this statement about the decision by the Mathematical Intelligencer and this one about the…
I agree in large part with his assessment, and do so in part based on Ted Hill’s Quillette article and not having read the actual paper yet.
I will say that far more people have now either heard about or read Hill’s paper than would have ever otherwise been aware of it had it actually gone ahead and actually been published and kept up. This is definitely an academic case of the Barbara Streisand effect, though done somewhat in reverse.
🔖 A Brief Introduction to the Basics of Game Theory by Matthew O. Jackson | SSRN
I provide a (very) brief introduction to game theory. I have developed these notes to provide quick access to some of the basics of game theory; mainly as an aid for students in courses in which I assumed familiarity with game theory but did not require it as a prerequisite.